May 22, 2017
Neiman Institute Releases Breast Screening Bundle Tool
Washington, DC – A new free resource allows radiology practices to estimate professional, technical, and global bundled prices for breast cancer screening bundles using different assumptions for which services are included, service utilization, and reimbursement rates. Developed by the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute, the Breast Screening Bundle Tool was presented at the American College of Radiology (ACR) annual meeting.
“This new tool is designed to help radiology practices develop bundled payment models for breast cancer screening,” said Danny R. Hughes, PhD, Neiman Institute senior director for health policy research and senior research fellow. “The calculated bundled prices are a single price for patients that would cover initial mammography screening and all subsequent imaging screening and diagnostic testing for either 364 days after the initial screen or a referral for biopsy or positive cancer diagnosis.”
According to Hughes, practices can enter their own utilization and local pricing data to estimate potential bundled prices for both public and commercial insurers. Practices can also choose which services to include in a bundle by assigning values of zero to any services in the tool they wish to exclude.
The launch of the tool follows the publication of a Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR) paper, which found that breast cancer screening provides a framework for radiologist-led bundled payment models, and can be implemented with different services included in the bundle depending upon a practice’s specific patient panel. The tool was developed using carrier claims data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 5% Research Identifiable Files (RIF) from 2013-2015, the most recent years available.
“As the U.S. health care delivery system transitions from FFS to value based payments, it’s important that we [radiologists] are at the table to ensure that our patients have access to high quality imaging and shaping payment policy to support that access,” said Geraldine McGinty, MD, MBA, FACR, vice chair of the ACR Board of Chancellors and a coauthor of the JACR study. “Bundled payments are seen by policymakers as a vehicle for aligning incentives and are currently required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for joint replacement care in most major markets.”
Visit the Institute’s website for more information on the Breast Screening Bundle Tool and a tutorial. To arrange an interview with a Neiman Institute spokesperson, contact Nicole Racadag at (703) 716-7559 or nracadag@neimanhpi.org.
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About the Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute
The Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute is one of the nation’s leading medical imaging socioeconomic research organizations. The Neiman Institute studies the role and value of radiology and radiologists in evolving health care delivery and payment systems and the impact of medical imaging on the cost, quality, safety and efficiency of health care. Visit us at www.neimanhpi.org and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.